“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
– Simone Weil
French philosopher Simone Weil says that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Why is attention so rare? Are we distracted? Yes, likely. How many times have we been preoccupied with something trivial, only to miss a person or an experience in front of us?
But we also struggle to offer attention because it costs us something.
Love always asks something of us. It asks us of our time, sometimes our comfort, or even our security. At some level, though, it always asks for our unwavering gaze at the other. Love asks us to pause our own agenda or our own moment of comfort and look up. Look around. Look directly at the one in front of you.
In the recent movie, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the protagonist is a young priest working to make sense of a baffling murder. In a remarkable scene, Father Jud gets a phone call just as he and the detective are frantically putting the pieces of the puzzle together. The detective pleads with him to ignore the call. But Fr. Jud answers. At first, Father Jud is understandably eager to wrap up the call. But then something shifts. The caller’s voice changes; she is sharing a deeper kind of pain. It feels abrupt, out of place. But as her tone changes, we see Father Jud change, too. He is suddenly zeroed in on this conversation and this person. We watch him leave the room, leave the mystery for the moment, and give this stranger on the other line his full attention.
It is an unforgettable scene. The caller is grieving and seeking accompaniment in her pain. Fr. Jud holds her story, listens closely, and offers words of care. But it is the posture of the priest in a chaotic, harried moment that moves us. He has given this woman the greatest gift – attention.
To pay attention to another is to see them, to notice them. It is more than that, though. Giving attention tells another that they matter – they are worthy of time and energy. In a world that seeks efficiency over human dignity, love offers our attention. This way of love will expose selfishness when it asks us to defer to another. But there is a gift here for us as well. As we practice a posture of attention, it fosters wonder for the human dignity before us.
Simone and Jud are momentary exemplars of the daily invitation to attention. As we turn our eyes to the fellow human being in front of us, the parent in the park, the barista, the BMV clerk, the man resting outside the gas station, we offer something simple, yet profoundly loving. A single moment of eye contact and a short conversation remind both parties that we are connected – we are both humans desiring love and capable of offering it.
Offering our attention may cause some inconvenience or discomfort, but the risk is worth the flourishing of another. Attention creates space for connection. Connection makes way for hope. And hope is an essential ingredient for flourishing. This is not to oversimplify the great weights of loneliness and social disconnection, but to say that little practices expand our ability to love the other. These practices are not trite; they are muscle-builders and love-expanders. Each day is an invitation to turn our eyes and attention to the one before us in the hope that our capacity for love grow a bit more.
